The present invention relates to apparatus for manipulating rod-shaped articles, such as filter rod sections, plain or filter tipped cigarettes, cigarillos, cigars or analogous commodities which constitute or form part of rod-shaped smokers' products. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for transporting rod-shaped articles, especially (but not necessarily) filter rod sections of unit length or multiple unit length, from a magazine or another source of supply into flutes or analogous receiving means of a withdrawing or accepting conveyor. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in apparatus for sidewise transport of rod-shaped articles (i.e., for transport at right angles to the longitudinal axes of the articles) between a source of supply and a withdrawing or accepting conveyor, for example, a rotary drum-shaped conveyor whose periphery is formed with axially parallel flutes for discrete rod-shaped articles.
Certain presently known apparatus are capable of delivering rod-shaped articles sideways from a magazine or another source of supply to the flutes of a rotating drum-shaped withdrawing or accepting conveyor with a reasonable degree of reliability, i.e., in such a way that each flute of the withdrawing conveyor is at least likely to receive a rod-shaped article. Many conventional apparatus which are used for such purposes comprise a magazine with an outlet which discharges a continuous or discontinuous stream of articles, preferably a multi-layer stream of rod-shaped articles which are of identical size and shape. Such apparatus further comprise a unit which feeds a single layer of articles from the outlet of the magazine into the path for the flutes of the withdrawing conveyor. A space for temporary storage of articles can be provided between the feeding unit and the outlet of the magazine, and an endless conveyor is used to constitute the bottom wall below such space. As mentioned above, the withdrawing conveyor normally constitutes or can constitute a rotary drum with peripheral flutes. The feeding unit delivers successive articles of the aforementioned layer into successive flutes of the rotating withdrawing conveyor. The just discussed apparatus are incapable of ensuring predictable delivery of rod-shaped articles into each and every flute of the rotating withdrawing conveyor when the latter is driven at an elevated speed.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,513,962 discloses an apparatus with a rotating withdrawing drum having peripheral flutes for reception and further transport of discrete rod-shaped articles. The magazine of the patented apparatus discharges a multi-layer stream which enters a channel whose bottom wall constitutes or includes an endless belt conveyor. The conveyor has an upper reach which is parallel to and extends below a plate-like guide all the way to the path for the flutes of the withdrawing conveyor. The speed of the belt conveyor is higher than the peripheral speed of the rotating withdrawing conveyor so that the articles which form a layer on the upper reach of the belt conveyor are caused to move nearer to each other and form a row of parallel articles which is normally free or which should be free of clearances between neighboring articles. The inlet to the flutes of the rotating withdrawing conveyor is defined by the aforementioned plate-like guide and the upper reach of the belt conveyor, i.e., the space between the belt conveyor and the guide accumulates a single layer of closely adjacent particles the foremost article of which is caused to enter the oncoming flute of the withdrawing conveyor. A refuser roll is provided at the upstream end of the just discussed space to prevent entry of more than one layer of articles. The patented apparatus is capable of forming a single layer of rod-shaped articles immediately adjacent to the path of movement of flutes on the withdrawing conveyor; however, it cannot ensure delvery of an article into each and every flute. To a certain degree, this is due to the fact that, when the withdrawing conveyor is driven at an elevated speed, the teeth between neighboring flutes (the flutes can be said to constitute tooth spaces between such teeth) act not unlike refusing or repelling means by tending to push the foremost article of the single layer back into the channel between the upper reach of the belt conveyor and the plate-like guide. Therefore, one or more flutes are likely to remain empty which can result in a substantial reduction of the output of the machine which receives articles from or which embodies the withdrawing conveyor. It has been found that, once the peripheral speed of the withdrawing conveyor reaches a given value, the patented transporting apparatus is highly likely to skip certain flutes so that the percentage of filled flutes downstream of the transfer station is relatively low. Since each rod-shaped article may constitute a filter plug of six or eight times unit length, the absence of a single filter rod section (i.e., the inability of the patented apparatus to fill one of the flutes during each revolution of the withdrawing conveyor) entails a loss of six or eight filter cigarettes of unit length. Since the output of a modern filter tipping machine is very high, this entails enormous losses in output within a relatively short interval of use.
The just discussed drawback of the patented apparatus cannot be eliminated by simply reducing the width of the gap between the upper reach of the aforementioned belt conveyor and the underside of the plate-like guide because this could lead to clogging of the gap and/or to deformation or even more pronounced damage to rod-shaped articles.
Commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 3,603,445 to Zausch et al. discloses an apparatus which delivers cigarettes from a maker to a packing machine in such a way that the packing machine can accmulate arrays of cigarettes which are ready for introduction into packs. The machine utilizes drum-shaped and/or belt-like conveyors with flutes for transport of cigarettes from the maker to the processing machine in such a way that one or more rows of articles are converted into groups or arrays each of which normally contains twenty cigarettes.